Vos
Vosis one of the five ways to say you in Spanish. It is mainly used in a region of South America called the Southern Cone, which is made up of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and parts of Chile, as well as in several Central American countries, including Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Costa Rica.
What is Vos and How is it Used?
Vos is an informal second-person singular subject pronoun that is equivalent to tú.
After prepositions, vos can be used to replace ti.
Vos sounds like just a shortened version of vosotros, but they are completely different.
Check out the following examples.
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Voseo vs. Tuteo
El voseo is the use of vos as a second-person singular pronoun, while el tuteo is the use of the pronoun tú. In some countries both voseo and tuteo are present, while other countries use one instead of the other.
- Vos is used instead of tú in some countries, such as Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
- In some areas of Uruguay, particularly Montevideo, voseo is verbal, rather than pronominal, combining tú and verbal vos forms (as in tú sabés).
- In some countries, such as Bolivia, Chile, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, as well as Southern Mexico, you may hear both tú and vos.
- In some countries, such as Spain, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and most of Mexico, you will only ever hear tú.
Conjugation
When using vos in the present indicative and in the imperative mood, there are different conjugation rules. However, when replacing tú with vos in all other tenses, you do not need to change the conjugation of the verb. You simply replace the preceding pronoun with vos.
Check out these examples.
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Voseo in the Present Tense
To conjugate a verb in voseo in the present tense, simply remove the infinitive ending and add the following endings.
- For -ar verbs, drop the -ar and add -ás.
- For -er verbs, drop the -er and add -és.
- For -ir verbs, drop the -ir and add -ís.
For one-syllable verbs like guiar(to guide) and fiar(to trust), it's no longer necessary to add an accent on vos forms, following a rule on accents published by the Real Academia Española, the Royal Spanish Academy. The vos forms of these verbs are guiasand fias, respectively, though some people still spell them guiás and fiás.
Check out the following examples of how to conjugate verbs in the present tense when using voseo.
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Irregulars
There are only three verbs that don't follow the voseo present tense conjugation rules.
Affirmative Vos Commands
Affirmative vos commands are used just like affirmative tú commands to tell a friend, classmate, child, pet, or family member the same age as you or younger to do something. To form affirmative vos commands, drop the -r from the end of the infinitive and add an accent on the last vowel.
Let's take a look at some examples!
Negative Vos Commands
To form negative vos commands, use the tú form of the present subjunctive.
Check out these examples.
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